Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, this work explores the historical and cultural dimensions of an indigenous Timorese domain in the southern central highlands of West Timor. Informing the study of Timorese social and cultural practice is an interpretative framework based on the concept of precedence and the rich repertoire of indigenous metaphor and binary categories by which Timorese articulate and classify social relations. Ideas of place and precedence are central to an understanding of local status differences within and between hamlet settlements. They also inform the...